Additional information:
Voices:
Brian Eno on track 1 and 3
Darla Eno on track 1
Patrick Sim on track 2
Anastasia Afonina on track 3
Rick Holland on track 4
Bronagh Gallagher on track 6
All Music: Brian Eno
All Words: Rick Holland
Taken from:
http://warp.net/records/brian-eno/panic-of-looking-new-ep-forthcoming
The 6 tracks continue the exploration of how lyric & song-writing are perceived in the post-everything era.
As the Sunday Times Culture suggests, "The poems aren't sung, yet the pieces are undeniably songlike,
first because the music refuses to act simply as background, but lurches frequently, sometimes unexpected
to the fore, and second because we hear the meaning of the words in the way we normally pick up song lyrics,"
while WIRED Magazine calls Eno's soundscapes, "a tapestry of pillowy synths, minor-key melodies,
chiming guitars and skittering drums."
All of these elements come together for the release of the EP, which was produced by Eno and features
his original artwork on vinyl, CD & digital formats.
Taken from: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16005-panic-of-looking/
A 16-minute EP of leftovers, released in conjunction with a little mountain town's music festival-- doesn't
sound very exciting, does it? But you could put Brian Eno's name on the cover of just about anything and
generate intense anticipation and scrutiny. Our prime architect of interdisciplinary electronic art has so
much authority that when I don't love one of his records, I feel disappointed in myself. That was the case
with Drums Between the Bells, a worthy but uneven collaboration with the poet Rick Holland, where sonic
miracles sat cheek-by-jowl with dated electronic styles perhaps better left in mothballs. Now, from the
same sessions, comes Panic of Looking. It's very slight, and its clearest purpose is to augment Eno's
recent residency at Asheville, N.C.'s Moogfest (which honors electronic music pioneer Robert Moog),
where the EP received an early release. But even Eno's spare parts give us something of substance to
chew over.
Panic of Looking is distinguished from its father LP by placing more emphasis on the words. This is a happy
development, because poetry is delicate. It can sound strained, or even fake, when it tries to scale the visceral
heights of music. Instead, music must lay back. If the glitchy sonics of Drums Between the Bells sometimes
ran roughshod over the words, Panic verges on overcorrection. Eno has engineered it to feel like Holland's
show-- spoken-word with accompaniment, sometimes engaged and sometimes desultory. It can be difficult
to discuss the musical quotient because there's so little of it. The most developed tracks are "In the Future"
and the title piece. The former draws out the tonality of speech via placid melodic counterpoint and euphoric
backing vocals, recalling the joyous world-pop of Eno/Byrne collaboration Everything That Happens Will
Happen Today. The latter may be the best-balanced effort the collaboration has produced, with Eno's taut
textural background sensitively augmenting Holland's staccato verse. Beyond those, we get a minute-long
lite-industrial curio, a pro forma instrumental, and a couple less memorable fusions of orotund speech and
crepuscular atmosphere.
Poetry writing and poetry recitation are two very different talents that don't always-- or even often-- coexist.
Inverting classical music's emphasis on the concert hall over the recording, modern Western poetry favors
the written word over the oral performance, which has become something you do mainly in order to sell books,
regardless of whether or not you're any good at it. It's a weird cultural construct: Imagine if musicians were
expected to promote their work by juggling. As a result, even poetry lovers may emit a long-suffering groan
at the prospect of attending yet another reading. But there are things oratory can do that text simply can't,
and Holland exploits them to his advantage, especially on the title track. One of them is homophonic
ambiguity: Is he saying "speed and weight" or "speed and wait?" Both concepts are compelling, especially
in flickering juxtaposition. Biting off words one by one, Holland creates hard enjambments
("Men& shake& hands") that deliver doses of meaning, each altering the last, as if from a time-release
capsule. If all of this sounds more geared toward Eno completists and poetry fans than the general listener,
that's about right.
See Small Craft on a milk sea
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